“Oh Lord!” said Allen. The line never failed to throw a class into titters. “She doesn’t expect you to sing that! In public?”
“She does. She kept tapping her baton and everybody would straighten up and try. And then Toby would look at Spike and Spike’d break up and the girls were all laughing, even if they didn’t know why.”
“The altos knew,” Toby said. “Altos always know.”
“And Miss Maxie kept saying, ‘Enunciate!’ And then she said, ‘Clearly, boys and girls. Separate the suck-k-k from the I.’” George cocked his head and looked at Toby. “Then Toby said, ‘Miss Maxine, I’m sorry to say it, but this ode has intimations of immorality.’ And Miss Maxie said, ‘Why, what do you mean? This is Shakespeare!’ And ol’ Tobe said, ‘Well, it sure ain’t the Constitution!’ And everybody fell on the floor. Whoo-ee!” said George, collapsing in the front row. “Poor ol’ Miss Maxie, she thought she was going to have to call out the militia.”
“She should have,” said Allen, laughing, “You were terrible!”
“Ah, she took it pretty well.”
“Yeah,” said Toby. “Miss Maxie’s okay.”
“Too bad about her,” George said.
“Sure is. Orare, Miss Maxie.”
“Why?” said Allen.
“Gettin’ hitched to that jerk.”
“Max? He’s a very nice man.”
“He’s so nice you can’t stand him,” George said.
“You don’t even know him!”
“We see him around.”
“Well, I’ve met him, and he is not a jerk.”
Toby said, “You know how he got that commission, don’t you?”
“How?”
“Politics. He knows a congressman.”
“I know. He’s a friend of theirs. I’ve heard Maxine say so.”
“He sure was friendly to ol’ Max.”
“How do you know?”
“Murd was talking about it. Max got a reserve commission as a captain in the finance section. That takes an act of Congress.”
“Is it against the law?” she said.
“Nah, it’s legal, I guess.”
“I don’t think Max would do anything illegal.”
“Not him,” George said, “he’s too nice.”
“What have you kids got against Max?” she said.
“Nothing,” he said cheerfully. “Except that he’s a jerk.”
“It’s the breed,” said Toby. “Homo rotarianus kiwanus.”
“Pompous erectus. I bet Miss Maxie has to salute him every time he walks in. I can see her now, in a ruffled apron, standing at attention.”
“After a hard day at the bank, when he comes home to his vine-covered mansion,” said Toby
“At Three-point-nine Percent Lovers’ Lane.”
“Is that anywhere close to Sappy Avenue?”
Suddenly Allen didn’t feel so jolly. Toby had said to her after the dinner that he was tired of listening to sappy music and poetry. Did he now consider her sappy like Maxine? It had been five long days since the dinner. She tried to read something in his face, but he and George were already off on another tear, moving the Maxes up in the world, from Happiness Hollow, hard by Rapture Road, through Ecstasy Springs, and up to Gloria in Excelsis Heights. “Smothered in honeysuckle vines!”
“‘Where the bee suckles…’” George sang.
Now the boys sat in the front row, spraddle-1egged, loose and easy. Their skin shone, brown from the spring sun. They were bright-eyed and limber. They were her boys again, the way they’d been in the early spring. It was good to laugh with them.
“Whoo-ee,” George said again.
And she laughed softly in contentment.
Then suddenly the joke was over. It was gone, like that. Played out. They sat for a moment staring out the window at nothing. The silence grew uncomfortable. A minute ago they were all shuffled together by the laughter. Now they seemed to draw back from one another, as if, without the joke as protection, they were a little afraid.
She shot an anxious glance at Toby. Something else hung in the air, something unsaid, which ought to have been the most natural thing in the world for one of them to say: Let’s go to the movies.... Let’s go have a beer! Then everything would have been right again.
But nobody said it. And they were about to leave. Already, George was unwinding himself from the chair. “I guess I better go look for that book.”
Toby stood up.
“Wait,” she said, before she could stop herself. If he got away now, she might not see him again for another week, and then there would be only one more week and school would be over. “If you guys aren’t too busy tonight, maybe we could—”
“Hello, Miss Liles.” Lindsey Homeier walked in.
Addled, innocent Lindsey, bearing a bunch of purple irises in a tall glass vase.
“I brought you some flowers,” he said.
“Why, how nice.”
“Hi, Lins,” said Toby.
The boy’s gentle smile swung like a light across the boys and back to Allen. “I hope you like these.”
“They’re lovely. Thank you very much.” She saw George and Toby making their way to the door. “You fellas leaving?”
“Gotta get home,” George said. “See y’ around, Teach.”
“See ya,” said Toby. But he didn’t look at Allen. He gave Lindsey a friendly jab on the shoulder. “Don’t cross the road without red suspenders.”
“I won’t,” Lindsey promised.
She followed them out with her eyes.
“They’re my favorite color.”
Their footsteps down the stairs and the slam of the outside door.
“I like purple,” he said.
“Oh. Yes—they’re very pretty.”
“I picked then myself, out of our yard. My mother let me bring them in this vase. It’s an antique.”
“My goodness.”
“It’s an heirloom. It’d cost quite a bit today, I guess.”
“I’m sure it would. Let me see now”—she pulled open a drawer—“I’ll just wrap these stems in paper—”
“Oh no, ma’am, I want you to keep it.”
“The vase? You don’t want to leave it here.”
“I mean you should take it home with you.”
“I should say not! It’s an heirloom—I might break it.”
“I could carry it for you.”
“I think you’d better take it home. I’ll find something to put the flowers in.”
“But they look so nice in the vase. Anyway, it’ll be mine someday, when I have a house of my own.”
“Then I certainly wouldn’t want to break it.” She lifted the irises out of the water, holding them over the wastebasket to drip.
“But I want you to have it,” he said. “I want you to keep it for me.”
“I can’t do that, Lindsey. What would your mother think?”
“She knows it’d be in good hands. She likes you.”
“I’m glad she does. But I won’t even be here—I’ll be gone all summer.”
“You’re coming back next year, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am, but—”
“Then you keep it.” He beamed with benevolence. “And I’ll come over and see it sometimes to be sure it’s all right.”
Lord help her! How did he know that Toby and George came over? Did everyone? And did he think he could too? Poor Lindsey, who couldn’t tell a topic sentence from a manhole cover and didn’t know a noun from a horse! She picked up the vase and thrust it firmly into his hands. “You’ll have to excuse me, Lindsey, I have a lot of work to do.” She marched to the door and stood aside, inviting him out.
“I’d really like to get to know you better,” he said, forced to follow. “You’re my favorite teacher.”
“Thank you, Lindsey. You’ll have to excuse me now.”
“You’re not old-fogey like the others. You’re more like one of us.”
“Thank you very much for the flo
wers.”
“I bet you’re not much older than me.”
“Than I, Lindsey!” She gave him a little push and shut the door on his heels.
“Miss Liles?” timidly, through the door.
She leaned on it, red with annoyance.
Again from outside, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
For godsake, go away, Lindsey!
There was a shuffle of sneakered feet and, after a moment, silence. She opened the door and peered out. Lindsey was gone.
But so were Toby and George. She’d been so flustered she hadn’t even asked George if he’d heard anything about the scholarship.
Gloomily she returned to the desk. “Oh hell!” she said. Lindsey had managed, after all, to leave the vase in her keeping.
“Well, as long as you’re here—” She jammed the irises down into the water and picked up the red pencil.
As she did so, there was the sound of footsteps again in the hall. She rose quickly to close the door. But hearing Gladys’s voice and Verna’s, she started back to the desk, stopped on the way by something Gladys was saying.
“You said anything to Allen?”
Verna’s voice in reply: “Haven’t seen her. Have you?”
“Only for a minute in the lounge.”
“You say anything?”
“I didn’t think I should unless she did. If she didn’t get it, it would be embarrassing.”
“I’d sure like to know whether—”
The voice broke off. Dead silence. Allen tiptoed back to the desk and sat down just in time. The next moment, there was Verna, peering around the edge of the door. “You still here?”
Allen said she was.
Caught, Verna came on in, followed by Gladys. “We were just going by,” said Gladys. “I didn’t know you ever stayed this late.”
“I’ve got a lot to do. Term papers.”
“Where’d you get the flowers?”
“One of the kids brought them.”
Gladys’s bright little black eyes glittered. “Thought you might have a secret admirer.”
“Who’s got a secret admirer?” Mae Dell stuck her head through the door. “Oooh, look at the pwitty flowers. Did your secret admirer send them?”
“Let’s go,” said Verna.
“What’s his name?” Did he enclose a card?”
“Only a term paper,” said Allen.
“Oh shoot, that’s not very romantic.”
“Come on,” Verna said, “the dime store’s going to close before we get there.”
“Is it that late?” Mae Dell buried her nose in the irises. “They smell so sweet.”
“Come on. I’ve got to buy some Odorono.”
“I just love flowers. Where we going to eat tonight?”
Gladys and Verna glanced at each other. “We’ll decide later,” Verna said. “Let’s go.”
But Mae Dell, her face lighting up, burst out with, “Oh, we’re going to the Bonne Terre, aren’t we? Isn’t this the night? Didn’t we say as soon as we got our contracts—”
“If you don’t hurry up we won’t get anywhere.”
“I wanted to wear my new suit.”
“You look all right. Come on, the dime store’ll be closed.”
“You-all came dressed up this morning. I didn’t know we were supposed to do that. I want to look nice too.”
“Well, go on then,” said Verna, “but get a move on.”
“It won’t take me a minute.”
“Gladys and I’ll meet you in front of the store. ’Night, Allen.”
“Isn’t Allen coming with us?” Mae Dell paused in the doorway. The other two stopped, a funny look on their faces. “Do come,” Mae Dell said. “You haven’t gone to eat with us for a long time.”
“She’s busy,” said Verna. “Can’t you see all those papers she’s got to read? Come on, you girls, let’s get out of here and let her get to work.”
“I’m sorry you can’t come,” said Mae Dell. “We’ll miss you.”
“Thank you,” Allen said. “But I do have work to do.”
She sat motionless, listening as the lounge door opened and shut and presently opened again and the Ladies went off down the hall. As the front door closed behind them she picked up the red pencil and looked down at Lindsey’s paper, still open on the desk.
“‘It’s hard to understand what Miss Browning says. But when she says I love her for her smile…’”
She stared at the purple page, no longer reading. They didn’t want her to go to dinner with them. Not Verna anyway, and not Gladys. Why didn’t they want her? They had always been a friendly bunch, asking her along for meals and trips to Kansas City. At least they used to. Until she turned them down so many times they stopped. Maybe that was the trouble. She thought back to the many times in recent weeks when she had made excuses. Maybe she shouldn’t have. She should have gone out with them more often instead of going off to Sutt’s Corner with the boys. But she doubted that the Ladies knew about that.
What was it then that Gladys didn’t think she should say, that might be embarrassing? What did they think she might not have got? Her contract? But she did have it, right here, sealed in a clean white envelope. Maybe that was it—they weren’t sure that she would be hired again. And why not? she’d like to know. The thought of Sutt’s Corner and other such diversions ran through her head again.
For several minutes she stared across the classroom chairs at nothing. Then she drew a long breath and turned another page of Lindsey’s paper. They had all got their contracts today, and the girls were splurging tonight and they didn’t want her along.
Not that she wanted to go along. Although she might just as well have. She might as well be with them or in Butte, Montana, for all the good it would do her to stay at home and wait. If Toby meant to come back he would have said so, one way or another. There would have been some sign. Or maybe he was waiting for a sign from her. There would have been one too, if Lindsey Homeier hadn’t walked in. Old Lindsey from Porlock. And there went Toby, and George with him, and there went the evening and there went another week, and that left only two weeks before school ended.
“Oh hell!” she wailed under her breath. She set her elbows hard on the desk, reached for the red pencil, and knocked over the heirloom vase. Purple sunbursts spread over Lindsey’s paper and Miss Barrett Browning was all wet.
Sixteen
It was Friday, just after noon. Coming back from lunch, Allen arrived at the building just as Max’s car was pulling up to the curb, a convertible with the top down, and Maxine beside him, her honey-brown head close to his shoulder. Max bent his head and kissed her, in public, in the broad light of day. But it was all right; they were about to be married.
“Oh, hi!” said Maxine as Max drove away. She wore a dress the color of her eyes. “You disappeared early from the shower. What happened to you?”
“I had to leave a little early. I’m sorry.”
“You missed the surprise. It was such a cute idea—even if it did fall apart.”
Allen had already heard about it from the Ladies. The box collapsed with Max’s weight. The bottom dropped out and so did Max and it was a bigger surprise than they had expected. “Poor Max,” Allen said. “It must have been embarrassing. Was he hurt?”
“Not a bit. And he was such a good sport. The girls felt terrible about it, but it wasn’t their fault. It was such a cute idea. I’ll bet you had a hand in it, didn’t you?”
More than she cared to admit. But Maxine prattled on without waiting for an answer. “You’re staying for the wedding, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“I should hope not! But honestly there’s only a few weeks left and there’s so much to do—I may miss it myself!”
“If you do, I’ll stand in for the bride.”
“Thanks, you’re a pal.” Maxine gave her a quick hug. “Oh, and thank you for the darling teapot. We just love it, both of us. You’ve all been so wonderful.”
“It was easy.”
Maxine was lit up like a marquee. Her skin glowed, the eyes were sapphires. Being in love could do that—tone up the skin, make the eyes sparkle, all the glands working overtime at the right things, the hormones doing whatever they did. It probably even cured warts.
“Oh gosh,” said Maxine with a glance at her watch. “I’m ages late. Thanks again, Allen. See you in church!” The laugh ran up the scale as she ran up the walk in a flurry of blue voile.
“Well, anyway, I’ll see you.” Allen climbed the stairs slowly. She wasn’t sure that being in love had cured much of anything for her. Maybe at first. But whatever it did was all undone now.
Down the hall a gang of girls stood at the gym door, in their midst, Toby and George. The two of them broke away and came up the hall, pleased as punch with themselves, whatever they’d been up to. Slaphappy and carbonated, in their crew-neck jerseys, George with one shoe on, the other one in his hand. She expected some creative explanation, but they simply said Hi and went on. Old Lordy was right behind them, looking abstracted. He merely nodded. Not even a wink out of him or an Oh-you-kid! But down by her door Dr. Ansel was lying in wait. She caught sight of him through a gaggle of kids. Neither she nor Ansel had a class that period and he was often lurking about, ready to take up her time. She was in no mood for Ansel today. Ignoring him, she ducked into the lounge.
“Why, it’s Allen!”
Mae Dell, who was facing the door, announced her like the master of ceremonies. The other two heads, close together in the middle of the room, turned toward her, their mouths still open.
“H’llo,” said Verna.
“We were just talking about the wedding,” said Mae Dell. “Isn’t it getting exciting?”
Gladys’s smile spread ear to ear but she was, apparently too taken aback by the sudden entrance to say anything witty.
“Come on,” said Verna, grabbing her pocketbook, “it’s time for the bell.”
The lounge door wheezed shut behind them.
Wedding, her hind foot. Allen stood at the big mirror, idly combing her hair. Whatever the secret was, they didn’t want her in on it. That little sneaking voice of warning murmured again in her head. What did they know about her—the boys walking her home from school now and then, the three of them together at the movies? Just enough to gossip about behind her back. She guessed she wouldn’t worry about it. Killing time, she smoothed her eyebrows, gave her teeth an absentminded examination, pulling her mouth this way and that, smiled prettily, and at last, when Ansel should be sufficiently discouraged, cautiously opened the door. He was gone. With any luck she was safe until four o’clock.
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